Les représentations sociales des enseignants d'histoire relatives à leur discipline et à son enseignement
(2009)
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- This thesis comes within the scope of social psychology, historiography and historical epistemology, the educational sciences, and didactics. Its problem concerns secondary school teachers' cognitive reception of reforms relative to their subject matter. The literature agrees that the attribution of new learning-related aims observed in reforms, referents, discourse, and resources granted to classrooms imply or explicitly designate an adaptation of teaching practices. It nevertheless appears that this change is rare or nonexistent, or at least does not bring about the expected results, especially when mandated through reform, in a centralized and planned manner (Paquay, 2007). Teachers' appropriation of a new didactic model is never mechanical, direct, and independent of their personal and pedagogical characteristics, epistemological or didactic conceptions, or the social context in which they practise their profession. It is rather a task of craftsmanship (Tardif & Lessard, 1999) involving interpretative processes (Spillane, Reiser & Reimer, 2002), and, particularly for secondary school teachers, conceptions related to their subject and the way it is taught. It is in view of this problem that the thesis empirically and systematically explores the conceptions of 165 history teachers of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and of the French-speaking Community of Belgium. The "conceptions", as subjects of study, have been conceptualized using the social representations theory (Moscovici, 1961) and the "central nucleus theory" or "theory of the central core" (Abric, 1997) in particular. The methodology presents data gathering tools and approaches developed in the context of the theory of the central core (hierarchical evocation, characterization questionnaire) and procedures stemming from data analysis in the social sciences (hierarchical classification of semantic data, multiple correspondence analysis of categorical data, respondent cluster and linear regression). The results enable a greater understanding of the structure and content of history teachers' social representations concerning their subject matter and its teaching. They also bring to light three distinct meanings ascribed to the teaching of history among the respondents and allow a better assessment of the gap experienced by teachers between these meanings and their practice. In addition, the study allows for a more precise identification of teacher positions regarding the epistemological models that have been used in the scholarly discipline over the 20th century as well as the didactic models that have played a key role in the evolution of the academic subject since the late 1960s. Finally, it offers a first glimpse of the individual and pedagogical characteristics that may explain the various conceptions of history and the way it is taught.
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Bouhon, M. (2009). Les représentations sociales des enseignants d’histoire relatives à leur discipline et à son enseignement. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/129553